In this interview, Deon Pretorius, Aurecon’s Land Development Services Leader in Cape Town, describes some of the barriers to creating efficient cities as well as current trends and the solutions and innovations Aurecon is leveraging to help our clients ‘get it right’.

In this, our second thinking paper focussing on programme management, we discuss the differences between programme and project management and what is required to deliver programmes effectively at the highest level.

Currently, about 60 million people move into cities every year. That’s more than one million more people arriving every week, in a city somewhere in the world, each with an expectation of better access to jobs, better education for their children, better health-care and a better quality of life.

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) plans help to coordinate activities should disaster strike. These plans aim to reduce the risk of communities, or even entire countries, either through ensuring they are prepared to respond in the case of an event, or by reducing risks through planning measures.

Programme management is most commonly the process of managing a number of interrelated projects to deliver new or enhanced infrastructure, such as a new metro system, an airport, a mine, a power station or even the Olympic Games.

In this article, Simon van Wyk and Carin Joyce discuss the multi-scalar and multi-dimensional nature (complexity) of risks, with a special focus on the interconnectedness of operational and disaster risk, with Civil Engineering magazine.

Nick Mannie – Technical Director, Waste – relates how the Merafong City Local Municipality took bold steps towards ensuring sustainable waste management solutions, and shares lessons that can be learnt from their actions.